Battle of Cable Street celebration announced

31 August 2006

The Battle of Cable Street

DETAILS of celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the East End's Battle of Cable Street have been announced this week.

The Cable Street Group and Alternative Arts are planning a commemoration day on October 8 with a procession, street theatre, music, singers and an exhibition of photographs from 1936, as well as stalls and other festivities.

Jill Cove, secretary to the Cable Street Group, said: "Like Mosley's fascist march, we could not allow the 70th anniversary of this momentous event to pass.

"So we're marking it as a special and significant historic occasion with a street festival."

The Battle of Cable Street has long been commemorated by the mural painted 20 years ago on the west wall of St George's Town Hall in Shadwell, just yards from where the clashes took place.

The anniversary actually falls four days before, on October 4, the day in 1936 when the people of the East End stopped Oswald Mosley and his blackshirt fascists marching through Cable Street.

Police had earlier diverted Mosley's march away from the Whitechapel Road because it was seen as provocative to target the mainly Jewish immigrant district. They also feared trouble because anti-fascists were waiting for them along Whitechapel.

But the demonstrators got wind of the diversion and headed for Cable Street, where they joined the dockers from the London Docks and blocked the fascists' march.

The ensuing clash involving hundreds of protesters was just three months after the Spanish Civil War began, when activists from around the globe headed for Spain to fight Franco's nationalist forces in a prelude to the Second World War.

In the East End as in Spain, the same slogan was used: 'They shall not pass'-'No Pasaran!'